Emily Brown
Just before Oklahoma death row inmate Wendell Arden Grissom was put to death, he used his last words to issue a message to those who survived his fatal crimes.
Wendell Arden Grissom became the first death row inmate to be executed in Oklahoma this year when he received the lethal injection on Thursday (March 20).
His death sentence came after the murder of Amber Dawn Matthews in 2005, when Grissom forced his way into the Blaine County home of Dreu Kopf, who had been joined by Matthews, 23, as the pair packed up Kopf's home ready for a move the next day.
Grissom shot his way through a sliding glass door and shot Kopf in the wrist, hand, shoulder, head and hip as she attempted to fight him off. Meanwhile, Matthews grabbed Kopf's newborn baby, Gracie, and ran to the bedroom where Kopf's elder child, Rylee, was screaming in her crib.
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Grissom followed Matthews, who begged the intruder not to shoot her - but Grissom didn't listen.
Still holding Gracie, Matthews was shot in the back of the head, and again in the forehead. The two children survived the attack, and Grissom was arrested the following day.
Two decades on, Kopf along with her now-grown children attended the execution of Grissom, who said he wanted his 'life to be over with' in his first confession to police.
When asked if he had any last words, Grissom asked for forgiveness for his crimes.
"I apologize to all of you that I've hurt," he said. "I regret so much that I've put that hatred in your heart for me."
Grissom said he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol when the killing took place, but continued: "It's still my fault. I'm not who I made myself look like that one day."
The convicted killer also prayed that the surviving victims could 'forgive' him for their own sakes.
Doing so would be the 'only way [they] will find God in this', Grissom said.
"I consider this a mercy. It's going to be all right," he added in his final remarks.
Following the execution, Kopf told she felt the apology was 'sincere' but 'too late'
"I had eight bullet holes in my body and there's still bullets in me," she continued. "I was always scared. If someone knocked on the door, I would call 911. ... I'd go to Walmart and a guy would walk in with a backpack and I thought ... there was going to be another shooting. I lived in constant fear."
Grissom was pronounced dead at 10:13am local time on March 20 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.